current-outlook-main.gifHuge fires make tiny particles that kill people and permanently damage kids’ lungs. City folk exposed to diesel fumes demonstrate this by dropping dead or growing up to have asthma. With fires burning throughout Northern California, lots of rural and suburban folks are sucking in those particles with every breath.

Fires burning throughout Northern and Central California continue to blow smoke into the Sacramento region. Currently, several hundred fires are burning. This unhealthy air quality is forecast at least thru Sunday.

Sunday. Tomorrow. That’s a long time to hold your breath.

Think the folks in Sacramento sucking down "unhealthy" levels of tiny deadly particles have it bad? They’re living in the lap of luxury compared to the people farther south down the Central Valley. Yesterday the San Joaquin Valley folks in Kings and Tulare counties breathed "very unhealthy" levels of tiny deadly particles. Which, of course, means they breathed very unhealthy air. With every breath.

Think this is just a California problem? Guess again. The vast area of the Western US which forms the watershed for the Colorado River is also drying. Which means massive fires are more likely in the Southwest. You don’t live in the Rockies or Southwest? Global warming is also expected to double the Northwest land area consumed by fires. You live east of the Rockies? The tiny deadly particles from western fires can travel much of the way across the continent. The folks in northeastern North Carolina don’t have to wait for the west wind to bring them tiny particles from Western fires: the drought across the Southeast brought North Carolina their very own fires — and their very own dangerous air.

In South Carolina — as in in Tulare and Kern counties at the south end of California’s Central Valley –the air this weekend carries so many tiny deadly particles that simply breathing is "very unhealthy". That’s called Code Purple. And I thought "Code Blue" was bad. What does Code Purple mean?

"Health Alert: Everyone may experience more serious health effects"

So in the Code Purple areas, the air carries so many tiny particles that everyone breathing may experience serious health effects.

What could be worse?

"Code Maroon: Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected"

This year’s fire season came early: in Northern California, the drought is so severe that June looks like August. What will August look like? Code Maroon?

Except for Hawaii and some of western Alaska and Canada, this summer nearly everyone in North America will be breathing the tiny particles born in fire that will snuff out some of our lives. Even without wildfires, you’ll have trouble avoiding the particles: the coal fired power plants that grow more numerous as you move east across the continent also supply us with the deadly small particles. Hey — and they give us more global warming gases, too: a lethal two-fer.

Diesel engines pour the fine particles into the air over agricultural regions and city streets. For parts of the country that still burn their trash, incinerators make huge "contributions" of tiny particles to the lucky folks who live downwind. Yum.

Jeebus — what are these tiny particles, anyway? Well, they’re named "fine particles" — not because they are such fine company, but because they are so small.

Fine particles (PM2.5). Particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are called "fine" particles. These particles are so small they can be detected only with an electron microscope. Sources of fine particles include all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes.

Where have we heard recently about tiny inhaled particles with deadly effects? Oh yeah — the nanoparticles known as carbon nanotubes.

But I digress: that’s another story.

So what it is these PM2.5 particles do in us?

The particles easily get into the eyes and respiratory system, where they can cause health problems such as burning eyes (conjunctivitis), irritated throat, runny nose (sometimes associated with an allergic response), and illnesses such as bronchitis (cough). Fine particles also can worsen chronic heart and lung diseases. Because death rates from these conditions have been noted to rise in a smoky environment, the smoke has been linked to premature deaths in people with these conditions, in a fashion analogous to increased mortality during heat waves.

Persons who are more susceptible to ill effects at lower smoke levels are those heart disease (congestive heart failure, symptomatic angina, cardiomyopathy), lung disease (asthma, reactive airway disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD]), and any medical condition in which oxygen delivery and heart and lung function are essential for health and wellness.

What can you do? In the short term, getting away from the smoke is the best individual solution — but that’s only available to those who can pull up roots and leave town for cleaner air. In California at the moment, the clean air is along the coast in the far north.

For those who can’t leave the area, staying indoors, using air filters, and avoiding exercise help decrease exposure.

For the long-term: post-carbon economy. We’re dying for it.

graphic: airnow.gov